Nope! IMO it makes no sense in a digital world to "ad tape like stuff" to a digital recording!

 

I use the Melda Auto Aligner and have no problems with phase. Drums sit really nice together with that one.

 

Yes, the keyword here is "linear frequency response". Studio monitor speakers have them, and your headphones have them as well. The less linear the less original is the signal you hear. Difficult to hear subtle differences, if your desktop speakers are over-emphasizing the bass, for example, or are weak in high mids, etc.

 

I wore out two Nakamichi cassette recorders. They were the best ones with the most top end (for cassette format). No other cassette deck sounded close for dynamics and upper frequencies.

 

Razorlight recorded their third album Slipway Fires onto tape and it sounds amazing.

 

... the ultimate knowledge. Saturation is key. Headroom vs. Hotness.

edit: Doby C. Period.

 

Look any one that thinks tape is a great workflow has never worked with it. You have to calibrate it, you have to hit it at the right level, you have to wait a minute for it to rewind if you want to go back to the first verse, you have to boost the highs on every track so that when it comes back it sounds the same, there's maintenance, you don't have weeks to mix it because time and number of plays degrades the tape.

As you see back when tape was popular mixers were engineers, and even though I am a professional engineer by day I wouldn't want to do every track with it.

Now that being said, I do use a tape plugin on every mix, but I use VTM which doesnt sound like tape but has tape characteristics, like a fat low end and removing harshness and slight compression.

If tape was so perfect then digital would never have been developed and wouldn't have taken over the industry. new technologies are invented to solve a problem, most often they introduce their own problems, but its always 2 steps forward 1 step back.

 

I have the closest thing to tape in software: UAD Ampex 102. I own Satin, I've used Waves, and Slate VTM, and they don't stand up. That being said, the next step up in analog warmth and pleasant harmonics added would be something with transformers. If budget and revenue would allow, I'd go for this:

http://rupertneve.com/products/542/

All the tape circuit and pleasantness in sound without the tape and maintenance hassle. Cheap it is not. You'd need two of those pups with the appropriate lunch box to host them.

 

@mercurysoto .. that will do the trick, and you won't have to keep maintaining it as you would an old machine. $1500 is a chunk of change for a pair. I believe an interesting technique that people use with a hardware tape deck is to not actually record with it, but rather send the signal in, let it hit tape and go through the circuit and then take an out just after the playback head and then immediately into the analog to digital converters to disk. An endless tape loop saves a ton if money on tape. Just change it when you begin hearing a loss of quality. The Neve 542, perchance to dream.

 

Thank you for the link Mercury.
I have a similar opinion about those plugins, though so far i was only blown away by Acustica`s D361A and of those tape plugins Satin is imo superior to others with Kramer coming in 2nd.
Havent tried UAD.

 

Yup. This leads back to the very fruitful discussion we've had these days on the influence of quality transformers in the signal. You've put me on the right track on how transformers, not saturation per se, bring in the analog magic to the table. So bad it is the single most expensive thing to implement in the studio.

Well, the agreed concensus is that Acustica is the one thing that brings UAD to its knees if you put in the effort to deal with the learning curve. And they seem to be getting better at and better at it. To be honest, I believe Satin is great tape emulation. I swore I'd not buy the UAD Ampex for the $350 bucks it costs. But I got it in a very discounted bundle and, oh man, the difference is notorious. It's like playing with a high-end Epiphone and then switching to a Gibson. I can only imagine what it'd be like to deal with the real deal. That's why those Neve 542 are on my wish list. One day maybe... or not.

 

UAD Ampex + Slate VTM is nice, but like i mentioned in another thread: no plugin comes close, the only thing that can replace the real thing is Anamod ATS-1.

 

Last edited: Nov 5, 2016

Im off to calibrate Slate VTM, wish me luck.Will work under Fabrice`s directions as written in the manual.
Finally some real life work, lol.
Bye,Bye.

 

Well, the damn thing works. Color me surprised.
Had some old country music recorded to the tape. I went through the whole reel looking for a blank spot, and none to be found. It sounds pretty stable, no warble and the reels are tight throughout all shuttle movements.
I guess I'm going to try running some guitar tracks through it with the old tape. Primarily what I'm after with it is removing the digital burn from distorted electric guitars and acoustics which is something that Slate VTM handles nicely. I'll compare tonally to VTM and go from there. If it kills the top end and is noisy or I can still hear country in it cause it didn't erase it all, I may sport for a new tape if the results warrant it.

 

Nice to hear it still works.

 

... just when we thought we're done with the tape warmth thing;
Waves comes up with this:
http://www.waves.com/
I'm going to bed.

 

Will have to check this out.
Thanks for letting us know @artwerkski

 

Recorded to tape, year of release ;2008

 

Anyone looking forward to get close to a real tape sound ITB should immediately try Goodhertz Wow Control.

Although it's more focused on doing wow/flutter effects, which it does amazingly well, it can add very realistic tape mojo once you learn how to handle it.

It saturates really really naturally, and it has a "random" control which is really nice to add movement once you learn how to set it up to add some random (very subtle) wow/flutter (typically less than 2%).

I swear. This is the real deal (or as close as it gets).

 

Last edited: Oct 8, 2017

lp filter.